Author: rakemag

Next month the Guthrie will grab all the attention when it re-opens, but right now you need to train your sights on Northeast Minneapolis, where the long-shuttered 1920s-era Ritz Theater will once again open its doors. In its heyday the Ritz was the lynchpin of a friendly neighborhood entertainment district–back before people drove to the mall for dinner and a movie. Once a number of galleries and watering spots revived the neighborhood, the savvy Ballet of the Dolls troupe recognized that it was high time for the old theater to be reborn too. The Dolls celebrate their new home–and their twentieth anniversary–with a brand-new ballet whose score includes music ranging from Mozart, Rachmaninoff, and Schubert to Mary J. Blige and David Bowie. 345 13th Ave. N.E., Minneapolis; 651-209-6689; www.balletofthedolls.org

John Guare’s script could rightly be called the star of this classic Jungle Theater production, but the cast includes a surefire lineup of local stage wonders: Jungle artistic director Bain Boehlke, the indefatigable and inimitable comic actress Wendy Lehr, and the ex-Twin Citizen Rosalie Tenseth, who’s returned from New York to reprise, for a third time, her role as Bunny, the mistress who favors hot-pink spandex and leopard prints. Guare’s acerbic, eighties-era tale makes light of a host of modern predicaments: terrorism, infidelity, mental illness, and celebrity lust. The resulting production is at once gut-busting and biting–a must-see. 2951 Lyndale Ave. S.; 612-822-7063; www.jungletheater.com

A woman finds herself torn between two loves, one with a beautiful body and one with a beautiful mind. Of course, the triangulated longing Thomas Mann wrote about in his 1941 novella The Transposed Heads, which was based on an Indian folk story, is a theme that keeps cropping up again and again. Ragamala Music and Dance Theatre, a foremost local authority on East Indian culture and dance, has crafted an evening-length production that debuted to enthusiastic reviews in 2001, and whose storytelling is reliant on movement, gesture, and sign language. Nicole Zapko, a deaf actor, and Ragamala artistic director Ranee Ramaswamy play multiple characters. 1501 4th St. S., Minneapolis; 612-338-6131; www.ragamala.net

The buttery-yellow walls with navy-blue accents may make you think you’ve wandered into a Scandinavian wine bar. But the menu at Willie’s, which comforts downtowners in fitting style from sunrise to nightfall, has just a few Nordic touches. Daytime visitors enjoy choice selections like tangy kielbasa salad–plump grilled sausages atop tart, lemony frisee or tatsoi leaves, dressed with goat cheese and pinot noir. At night, when the lights are dimmed and the yellow backs down, the food and wine find center stage. Sophisticated small plates pair nicely with the extensive wine list: A taste of pork and apple mingles amicably with a sweet Riesling; chorizo and roasted pepper are kept in check by a quenching Rioja. 1100 Harmon Pl., Minneapolis; 612-332-8811

That old Thomas Edison saw about inspiration and perspiration? It came to mind when we received Alison McGhee’s response to our question about which five things she’d take with her to a deserted island. McGhee, a Minneapolis-based writer who has won two Minnesota Book Awards, didn’t just answer the question–first she wrote an entire essay about the proposition, and then whittled the thing down. Presumably that industrious approach to the creative process has proved useful to McGhee in the writing of her six novels, including the acclaimed Shadow Baby and her most recent, All Rivers Flow to the Sea, a young adult novel–and yet another MBA nominee. Her work also appears this month in The Rake’s first-ever literary supplement. And judging from her annotations below, she wouldn’t let a thing like being stranded on a desert isle hamper her artistic life. Here’s what she’d bring:

1. The brown, fake-leather Merriam-Webster dictionary that I won at age eleven in the New York State Spelling Bee. This dictionary is the only book I will need, because it contains all the words I’ve ever known, and with enough time and patience, those words can be rearranged into all the books I’ve ever loved. Every day on my desert island I will look for cool words I don’t know, like “testudo,” which is a row of armor made by Roman soldiers when they hold their shields up high in the air, and “palimpsest”: writing that has been partially erased from that which it was written on.

2. A notebook in which I have copied down my ninety favorite poems. Ninety because my grandmother lived to be ninety, and my grandmother loved poetry, and if A = B and B = C, then ninety poems seems about right. On my desert island I will finally have plenty of time to memorize all my favorite poems.

3. My piano and the music I brought with me. I’ll play my Hanon scale exercises over and over and over. Maybe I’ll play them ninety times each. And then I’ll turn to my Chopin prelude, the one I can never get exactly right. With all that time, alone on my desert island, maybe I can finally get the incredibly hard part near the end to sound as if it’s not hard at all.

4. A needle and thread and the small box of old clothes from the top shelf in my closet. These are clothes I have saved over many years: My grandmother’s flowered housedress, my baby’s polka-dot pants, the navy blue shift that my mother looked so beautiful in when I was a child, the shirt my best friend wore every time we went dancing in college. I will cut them all up into scraps and turn them into a quilt that will keep me warm on the sand at night.

5. A small, sharp knife. I don’t know how to carve, but I’ve always wanted to, and finally I have plenty of time to learn. I’ll carve only the pieces of driftwood that wash up on shore. No coconuts, no plastic flotsam. When I get good at carving, I’ll mount a driftwood sculpture installation beside a poem written on the sand, below the high tideline, for the fish and seagulls to admire. When the tide is high, I’ll play Chopin for the seagulls, and the fish will raise their silvery fins in a testudo, honoring the palimpsest of our art as it washes out to sea.

In 1949, Jerome Liebling left the established New York art scene for the academe, taking up an influential post as professor of film and photography in the University of Minnesota’s fledgling fine arts program. As he set down roots here, his outsider’s perspective drew him toward people and places–scenes from St. Paul’s slaughterhouses, work-worn faces from the Iron Range, children on the Red Lake Reservation–that few others at the time considered artistic fodder. He also witnessed political history as figures ranging from Walter Mondale to JFK made memorable appearances in Minnesota. Today Liebling lives in Florida, but he visited the Twin Cities recently to celebrate the opening of a retrospective of his work at the Minnesota Center for Photography.

You left New York at a time when it was becoming the world’s art capital. Do you think coming here limited or liberated you as an artist?

I really grew up in Minnesota, whether I knew it or not. The loss of my home and my friends in New York was tough, but I thought Minnesota was very rich, and I really traveled throughout the state to discover what I could.

Your presence here was influential in developing a stronger art community and gallery scene. Were you hoping to recreate some of what you’d experienced on the East Coast?
Well, one of the things going on at the time was the vast expansion of the universities, much of it due to the GI Bill, and the art department at the U of M had just been formed. At that time, I didn’t understand what that meant, but it was a very significant change for young artists. Previous to that, you trained at a conservatory if you were in music or the arts. Suddenly, you could get a respected degree in the arts. So I was part of that change, but I didn’t even know it.

Your body of work includes some very disturbing images. Are you drawn to photographing the dark side of life?
Well, those things are there, and at some point we all have to face them. I like to think my work captures the passion and the pain of life. Passion arises and destroys, nature rises again, and things seem to rejuvenate. You have hope and, unfortunately, a little despair. The wonderful growth that you get from nature–young people, beautiful things growing–is amazing. But then eventually things die. And how we resolve that philosophically, I don’t know.

Have you ever been upset by your subject matter?
The South St. Paul slaughterhouse project was challenging. I started it in 1952, and I’d been in World War II until my discharge in 1945. When I first went down to South St. Paul and went through some slaughterhouses, it was really a challenge to my memory. That’s when I saw the chaos and the blood and the killing, and absorbing that was just as much a part of what I was doing there as simply documenting how these guys worked.

Is there a photo out there that you always wanted to shoot, but never got the chance?
There’s not really a missed opportunity I dwell on, but rather a general desire to keep getting out my camera and working. I’m not really still taking photographs. Well, I do a little bit in the winter. I live in Florida now, and for a long time I’ve done a nature series there.

What was the last photo you took that you were really excited about?
Well, I just wrote an article about the people who came to Florida, and I’ve been working on photos that illustrate the whole migration and culture that has evolved there. All the New York people that I knew, and my mother as well, went down there and became the snowbirds, and it was a long time before I understood the connection between their desire to come to Florida and the natural scene, the tropical flora. I’ve found that flora to be endlessly interesting to photograph–as well as the people, of course.

You’re about to turn eighty-two–is working behind the camera getting difficult?
It does. I don’t seem to have the energy at my age. And there’s also the conflict of digital. I’m not a digital photographer, and very slowly, the materials that I use are disappearing or becoming hard to get. So there’s going to have to be a change there, but I’m postponing that as long as possible.

The Calhoun Beach Club’s on-site restaurant wins Facelift of the Year. The rejuvenated space (pictured here), once home to Dixie’s, is now a restaurant worthy of the club’s luxe membership. The warm, orangey colors; clean, modern lines; and cushy pod furniture are invitingly swank, but this place isn’t all about show. View’s sesame-encrusted salmon with an orange beurre blanc, shrimp spaghettini baked in parchment paper, and crispy zucchini fries are notable successes. Even the beautiful people can dine well here without mistreating their bodies: In keeping with the Club’s fitness mission, delicious and healthy dishes like Moroccan grilled tofu and turkey burgers populate the menu. This is the rebirth of a spot that thoroughly deserved to be gorgeous again. 2730 Lake St. W., Minneapolis; 612-920-5000; www.viewcalhoun.com